Vehicle registration plates of Europe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about registration plates of Europe. For registration plates of members of the European Union, which share a common format, see Vehicle registration plates of the European Union.

A European vehicle registration plate is a vehicle registration plate, a metal or plastic plate or plates attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies the vehicle within the issuing authority's database. In the European Union most countries have adopted a common format for number plates, which are issued by member states.

The common EU format was introduced by Council Regulation (EC) No 2411/98 of 3 November 1998[1] and entered into force on the 11 November 1998. It was based on a model registration plate which several member states had introduced, Ireland (1991),[2] Portugal (1992),[citation needed] and Germany (1994).[3]

The EU format is optional in Finland, Sweden, Cyprus,[4] United Kingdom and Denmark.

  • EU format plates are either white or yellow in colour, on a plate wider than it is tall. Yellow registration plates are used in the Netherlands and in Luxembourg; and in Cyprus, the United Kingdom and Gibraltar yellow plates are used at the rear and white at the front. The UK and Norway use flat plastic plates (embossed metal plates are an option in the UK), as opposed to metal plates in most other European countries. A mixture of plastic or metal plates is permitted in Ireland and France. Denmark uses yellow plates for vehicles registered as commercial vehicles and in Sweden, Greece and Lithuania yellow plates are used for taxi vehicles. Belgium uses red characters and is the only country not to use the standard black-on-white or black-on-yellow combination; its European plates will have ruby red (RAL 3003) characters on a white background. In Norway, cars with front seats only (used for cargo) have green plates with black characters. Danish plates have a small holographic strip to the right of the blue EU strip.
  • The common design consists of a blue strip on the left side of the plate. This blue strip has the European flag symbol (twelve yellow stars), along with the country code of the member state in which the vehicle is registered.

Vehicles without the EU strip (and associated country code) are obliged to display oval nationality stickers at the rear when driving in other countries, but this law has not always been rigorously enforced.

Contents

[edit] Common letter and digit systems between countries

Several countries have made efforts to avoid duplicating registration numbers used by other countries. Nevertheless this is not completely successful and there are occasional difficulties for example in connection with parking fines and automatic speed cameras.

  • Sweden, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta and Belgium (until 2010) each use combinations of three letters and three digits.
  • Greece uses a combination of three letters (which are the intersection of Latin and Greek alphabet, i.e. A, B, E, Z, H, I, K, M, N, O, P, T, Y, X in Greek alphabetic order) and four numbers, in the form of AAA-0000, while Spain uses a four number-three letter combination, in the form of 0000 BBB (vowels and some maybe confusing consonants, like Ñ and Q, are not used)
  • Norway and Denmark use two letters and five digits. The plates look very similar, but Denmark has a red border around the plate. Use of the country code on the plate may mitigate this problem (Norway began using the system on 1 November 2006). Denmark has begun running out of combinations in this style and has now introduced combinations previously reserved for Faroe Islands for EU style number plates (which will use different letters than non-EU style plates).
  • The Netherlands and Portugal both use three groups of two characters (letters or numbers) in several sequences: AB-12-CD, 12-34-AB, 12-AB-34, AB-12-CD, etc. However, Portuguese plates have a white background, while those of Netherlands (after 1978-01-01) have a yellow one, though both countries also use white letters on blue plates for classic cars. Furthermore, newer plates on Dutch vehicles only contain consonants, to avoid coincidental abbreviations or words. Also some sensitive letter combinations, such as SS or SD, are not used. The combination 'AA' is reserved for cars of the royal family. Dutch company registered bus, truck and/or minivan plates always start with a B or a V. Dutch taxis use blue registration plates. The number of new combinations ran out in 2008. By now, new registered cars in the Netherlands use the following format of two digits-three letters-one digit (12-ABC-3).
  • Belgium used the sequence ABC-123 between 1973 and 2008. When these combinations ran out in 2008, the inverse sequence 123-ABC was adopted, with the first plate in the new series issued on June 25, 2008. With the introduction of the European format on November 15, 2010, a seven-character combination 1-ABC-234 will be used and the current 123-ABC will be discontinued. However, the six-character plates will remain valid and no date is set for their expiration yet. Since Belgian plates are linked to an owner rather than to a vehicle, these older plates are likely to remain in use for a considerable time. As a way to phase out the six-character plates, future vehicle subscriptions will only be possible on the seven-character plates.
  • Luxembourg plates use two letters and four digits AB 1234. Older series with only three digits (AB 123) or all-numeric plates with up to five digits are no longer issued but are still in use.
  • Current registrations allocated in Great Britain and Romania (where the registration contains two digits) are both of the form AB12 CDE. The Romanian rear plates are white whereas British ones are yellow. There is also a difference in the spacing and the font.
  • Turkey currently not a member of the EU, however uses the blue European strip on the left of the plate as a member of European Customs Union (only member of the union without EU membership), with the country code (TR), but without the 12-EU stars sign. License plates consist of letters and digits in combinations of 99 AB 999, 99 A 9999, 99 ABC 99, 99 AB 9999 or 99 A 99999 where the first two digits show which province the vehicle is registered from. First two digits numbers go from 01 to 81 (as there are 81 provinces in Turkey) and each one is assigned to a province with alphabetical order e.g. 01 is the code of the province Adana or 34 is the code of the province Istanbul. All 81 provinces uses "01 AB 123" style plates initially until all combinations ran out, then the province starts to use 01 A 1234 then 01 ABC 12 etc. As a result, three largest provinces i.e. Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir are currently issuing 99 AB 9999 style plates since they used all combinations of previous series but the province Sivas for example, still issues 99 AB 999 plates as having a modest population and number of vehicles. 99 A 99999 series are not regular since they are only used in provinces where commercial vehicles are abundant e.g. Bursa to distinguish these vehicles there from passenger cars. Letters "I" and "O" are only used in the middle 01 ABC 12 series e.g. 34 YOC 34 or 06 TIL 56 to avoid confusion with numerals "1" and "0" respectively. Also some letters combinations like "PKK" are banned due to their referring to state-enemy organizations or racy words.
  • Serbia and Montenegro, currently not a member of the EU, used the following system until 2007: MM 12-34, MM 123-45 or MM 123-456 (MM being two letter abbreviation of municipality), and having state flag (of former FR Yugoslavia, later Serbia and Montenegro) between municipality and numbers. Montenegro left that system in 2007, and introduced new format: MM AB 123, with coat of arms in circular shape between municipality and letter sequence. Blue strip with MNE country code is placed in the left side, with vacant place for EU stars, in case of joining the Union. Serbia also uses new system with blue strip country code SRB: MM 123-AB and MM 1234-AB, with coat of arms between municipality and number sequence. The following system is used for taxi vehicles: BG 123 TX or BG 1234 TX, where a TX combination is reserved for this purpose only.

[edit] Differing numbering systems

Individual European countries use differing numbering schemes and text fonts:

[edit] Gallery

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: License plates of Europe

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31998R2411:EN:NOT
  2. ^ http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZSI287Y1990.html
  3. ^ http://www.worldlicenseplates.com/world/EU_D6XX.html
  4. ^ http://www.licenseplatemania.com/landenframes/cyprus_fr.htm

[edit] External links

Vehicle registration plates of Europe
Sovereign
states
States with limited
recognition
Dependencies
and other territories
Other entities
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Europe&oldid=472872648"
Personal tools
Namespaces
Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export
Languages